African economies need AGOA strategy

African economies have been told to work on specific national strategies and plans to benefit more from the United States’ signature trade initiative, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

“The countries that have had the most success under AGOA are those that have worked hard to develop a strategy and a plan -- and actually executed this plan and strategy to promote AGOA.

 “For these countries, the government has formed a strategy -- and in many cases a committee -- to actually have trade experts look into these issues and then to reach out to the trade hubs to figure out how they can be helped most effectively,” said Amy Holman, Director of the Office of Economic Policy Staff, Bureau of African Affairs, in the U.S. Department of State.

She was speaking in a telephone-briefing organised by the Africa Regional Media Hub in collaboration with the Foreign Press Centres at the 2012 AGOA Forum with African journalists.

The eleventh annual AGOA Forum on US-sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation, held in Washington, D.C., brought together hundreds of participants including senior African and U.S. government officials and private sector and civil society representatives to discuss trade and investment opportunities.

This forum focused on enhancing infrastructure development in Africa, a critical part of unleashing Africa’s economic potential -- including the tremendous intellectual, technical and business capital represented by Africa's youth, women, and entrepreneurs.

“Currently, there are thousands of products that are available under the AGOA list to enter the United States duty-free, so I would encourage [African] firms to take a look at this,” Ms. Holman said.

For more than a dozen years, AGOA has been the U.S. government’s signature trade initiative with sub-Saharan Africa; helping diversify exports, create jobs, reduce barriers to trade, and expand economic opportunities for the region’s population. 

With more than 6,000 products receiving duty-free treatment when exported to the United States, AGOA has helped generate hundreds of billions dollars in trade and investment opportunities during its short lifespan. 

AGOA provides a framework for improved access to U.S. credit and technical expertise, and establishes a high-level dialogue on trade and investment in the form of an annual US-sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Forum. 

It is an integral component of the United States’ overall trade with sub-Saharan Africa, increasing two-way trade between the two regions to over US$95billion in 2011. It also generated a US$13billion increase in two-way trade between 2010 and 2011, and a total of US$716.1billion since 2001.

Mr. Patrick Dean Coleman, Director for African Affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, congratulated African countries for deepening intra-regional trade and lowering tariffs.

 “To me, when I look at trade on the ground in Africa -- particularly regional trade amongst regional organisations like the East African Community or the West African Economic and Monetary Union, or the South African Customs Union -- I don't see tariffs as a problem, because tariffs have come down; at least on paper.

“The problem is non-tariff barriers, [like] moving goods from one area to another, roadblocks, red-tape and other obstacles in moving things to port, [as well as] delays at port.

“Things like that are more the problem of intra-African trade than the tariffs. That’s an area where we’re still trying to find our way. We're not sure how we can help African countries to regionalise, but we're partnering with African countries and we're talking about it,” Mr. Coleman said.